In an era where anyone can make music with a click, Mike Smith allegedly turned streams of AI-generated songs—and an army of bots—into $10 million. Now, he faces federal charges in the first major US music streaming fraud case fueled by artificial intelligence. In a lengthy piece for Wired, Kate Knibbs presents Smith's story through the recollections of Jonathan Hay. The men were two middle-aged collaborators from different worlds—Smith a muscle-bound medical clinic owner, Hay a laid-back industry publicist—who teamed up in 2017 to chase success as a jazz duo. Their first album bombed, but a re-release, Jazz (Deluxe), briefly hit No. 1 on the Billboard jazz chart in 2018 before vanishing just as quickly.
Hay, baffled by the sudden collapse and lack of fan engagement (he couldn't find a single tweet about their album), dug into Spotify's metrics and found most listeners were in places like Vietnam. Soon, distributors began flagging their music for streaming fraud and pulling it from platforms. Smith told Hay it was just a technical mix-up then copped to asking his clinic staff to stream the songs. But the truth was allegedly bigger: In 2024, Smith was arrested by the FBI. Prosecutors allege Smith used armies of bots to stream thousands of AI-generated tracks, earning over $10 million in royalties. Smith has pleaded not guilty.
Hay, whom Knibbs paints as a "patsy" and has not been charged in the case, says he tried to blow the whistle on Smith, going so far as to contact Billboard and the FBI. (Read the full story, which highlights a broader issue: How AI-generated music is flooding streaming platforms as fraud detection struggles to keep up. ) (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)
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